Greeting Reuse Fans,
I wanted to take a moment and thank everyone for continuing to shop at CJ during the extensive roof repairs being undertaken by our landlord. It is challenging operating in a 100 year old warehouse building that was really never intended to be a retail space.
Despite its imperfections, the building allows us to effectively execute our building material reuse mission and support the mission of other reuse nonprofits. Just a reminder of the other organizations and services that operate from CJ’s 102,000 square foot building with about 1 acre of parking:
City of Pittsburgh Recycling Drop Off:
This is one of the City’s most active drop off sites. They recently placed a collection roll-off exclusively for glass collection! We have hosted this site at no charge to the City since 2004, because we wanted to support people in our neighborhood who want to recycle but didn’t have options in convenient locations.
Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse:
Entrance on North Lexington. This nonprofit is dedicated to reuse of arts and craft materials. If you’ve never been, then next time you’re crafting, or trying to get some home office supplies, or you just want some inspiration, you would definitely want to check out their store, check them out here.
Free Ride DIY Bicycle Collective:
Entrance on North Lexington. A nonprofit dedicated to bike reuse and repair. You can even drop off bike donations at CJ’s loading dock when they’re closed!
Global Links:
A nonprofit dedicated to repurposing medical surplus. We are able to take a number items for Global Links – check here for a list of items accepted at CJ’s loading dock. They accept a much wider variety of items at their own location.
Appliance Warehouse:
You can drop off your old Freon appliances at CJ, for capturing and reuse of Freon and recycling of metals by Appliance Warehouse. There’s a $10.00 fee payable at drop-off. We also have an area in the store where we sell used/surplus appliances from Appliance Warehouse on consignment. We do this to give you a broader selection of affordable appliances.
Project RE_:
The entrance to Project RE_ is behind the large, transformer like façade made from hollowcore doors. This space includes a meeting room, gallery, small class room and a wood shop where we create value added products from materials we have in the warehouse. It also houses the Trade Institute of Pittsburgh’s welding training center. We hold workshops in the community room and are working on new Project RE_ programing for the wood shop space—stay tuned!
Off the Floor Pittsburgh:
While we do not accept donated materials from the nonprofit “Off the Floor” we sell materials on consignment to support their mission. They also accept upholstered furniture, which CJ does not accept.
So while a big warehouse can have a lot of challenges for our employees and our shoppers, it is the reuse “mother ship” that allows us to support reuse and recycling beyond building materials.
